Julio Santo Domingo of International Rescue Committee supports Resolution 626

Good afternoon, Chair Canacion and the committee.

My name is Julio Santo Domingo.

I'm a deputy director of the New York office of the International Rescue Committee.

I am here to express our support for Resolution 626.

The IRC, or the International Rescue Committee, supports both internally in the United States and, of course, New York, and also internationally the Haitian population.

In the last four years, we have served 10,000 Haitian clients overall, 5,700 through New York and New Jersey alone.

So it's a reflection of how central this population is to our organization.

In RSC's country program in Haiti, here's the reports.

Every day, reflect the profound security and humanitarian challenges the country faces, including sexual violence, kidnapping, displacement, combined West Bridge food insecurity, armed gangs have control across 90% of the capital and beyond,

restricting humanitarian access.

Over half the population, 5.8 million people, do not have enough to eat, a crisis expected to deepen as an approaching unneeded pattern threatens to drive food insecurity even higher.

For Haitian families who have built their lives in the United States,

The loss of TPS have devastating consequences, creating uncertainty surrounding not only their ability to remain and work in the U.S., but also their ability to work in the U.S.

Also, the stability of the communities.

These are not simply immigration matters.

They are deeply human concerns that affect families, livelihoods, and the ability of individuals to plan for their futures.

One of our clients, for example, who fled Haiti and arrived in 2023 with her two children, is just one of the great examples.

Of a New Yorker that's facing this crisis right now.

TPS would have protected her from returning to Haiti and from detention in the U.S., but this protection from four Haitians was ended before she could submit her application.

We at DRC have helped her continue to in other means, such as applying through asylum.

However,

You can finish your sentence.

Go ahead.

The loss of TPS is potentially being set back to harm.

It threatens not only the safety of current generations, but the hope of the children and the generations to come.

So thank you for your time today.

Thank you, and thank you for clarifying that you are not the same IRC that we were talking about the whole time that we were having this hearing.